The pitch sounded enticing: for an upfront fee, real estate
“investor” Hasan Hussain promised to find clients the homes of their
dreams or negotiate the loans of existing homeowners struggling to pay
their mortgages.

Yet Hussain did neither of those things. He
simply took his victims’ money—depriving them of their dreams of
homeownership and defrauding them out of more than $1 million. Hussain
targeted people for whom English was a second language, encouraging them
to sign documents they did not understand.

“One woman gave him her life savings. It was her American dream to
find a home, and he told her he’d help her,” said Special Agent
Christina Grady, who investigated the case out of the FBI’s Boston Field
Office. “But he never followed through on any promises to anyone. He
would collect money—from people who didn’t have much money—and pocket
it.”

Not only did he target vulnerable homeowners or would-be
homeowners but Hussain also had a knack for winning his victims’ trust,
becoming “like part of their family,” Grady said.

Hussain, who
began his years-long fraud scheme in Rhode Island in 2009 while on
supervised release for similar crimes in Massachusetts, used a variety
of tactics to defraud his victims, which got more complex over time as
he acquired more homes.

For example, he convinced a family
struggling to pay their mortgage to move out of their home and into one
his other properties; he then rented their home out, collecting rent
from the tenants without paying the homeowner’s mortgage. Another tactic
involved convincing homeowners that he was trying to negotiate with
their lender on their behalf. Instead he would damage their property to
decrease its value, and once the home was damaged, he’d buy the home in a
short sale—a term for a property being sold at a price lower than what
is owed on the mortgage.

“He had a lot of different schemes, but it was basically
making promises to people in difficult circumstances and never
following through with a single one.”

Kathleen Brekenfeld, forensic accountant, FBI Boston

Hussain also solicited investors to purchase properties they never
intended to live in, telling the victims he would rent out and manage
the homes on their behalf. He did not actually make the mortgage
payments, defrauding the homeowners and jeopardizing their credit
scores.

“He had a lot of different schemes, but it was basically
making promises to people in difficult circumstances and never following
through with a single one,” said FBI Forensic Accountant Kathleen
Brekenfeld, who painstakingly matched up thousands of Hussain’s
financial transactions with real estate activity to help prove the case.
“It’s unfathomable how he could meet these people, see what they’re
going through, and rip money out of their hands.”

Hussain pleaded
guilty last September to aggravated identify theft and conspiracy to
commit wire fraud. In January, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

“They
won’t get their money back, but the victims were pleased with the
sentence, knowing that he can’t do this to anyone again anytime soon. It
gives them some closure,” Grady said.

Grady and Brekenfeld
recommend doing your homework in any real estate transaction, especially
if someone asks you for significant cash up front or promises any sort
of guaranteed returns. Legitimate investments do not offer guarantees.

“If
it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Brekenfeld said. “High
upfront fees and guarantees should raise a red flag. Do your research.
Step back and say, ‘Does this really make sense to me?’ ”

This damaged wall was in the home of one of Hasan
Hussain’s victims. In some cases, Hussain convinced his victims to move
out, and he would then damage their homes to reduce the values.